Gizmodo’s moles say that the Zune player will hit for $229, a drop from Microsoft’s intended $289 retail price. Microsoft had intended to beat the iPod price by ten bucks, but with Apple’s Showtime price cut, they needed not only to beat the iPod, but in a dramatic fashion. As a result, they held a lot of internal meetings and settled on a price sixty dollars less than they wanted, and twenty less than Apple charges for a same-capacity player.
$229 is a low enough price to justify the Zune even if it does fail. Face it, the iPod is a huge bargain at $249, but $229 is a steal. If the Zune has an easy way to watch Windows Media Center recorded shows, I think I’ll actually buy it.
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Zune, Windows Media, General |
no comments
The first four Platinum Hits Xbox 360 titles will hit on October 15, getting new packaging and a sweet $29.99 price point. They will be:
- Perfect Dark Zero
- Project Gotham Racing 3
- Kameo Elements of Power
- Need For Speed Most Wanted
Note that other than Need For Speed, all the titles are published by Microsoft Game Studios. While Perfect Dark and Kameo largely sold only because they were launch titles, and didn’t exactly blow anyone away, the other two games give consumers a choice of solid racing titles. If you only get one Platinum Hits title, I recommend PGR3.
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Xbox 360, Xbox, General |
one comment
Turns out that Xbox Live Arcade games will run right off a recorded CD or DVD, unlike regular Xbox games. However, the games will still only run on consoles that have purchased them. In other words, if you copy your friend’s Arcade game to a DVD, you’ll only be able to play the trial version.
In that case, what’s the point of all this?
- Being able to run software on the 360 off any removable media is a big deal to homebrew software makers. If they can find a way to hack a popular game to run stuff like web browsers or NES emulators, we could see an explosion in Xbox homebrew applications. Then, all you need to run them is to buy Geometry Wars.
- If space on your 360 Hard Drive is at a premium, you can now dump the games on backup DVDs and just pop them in to play.
- If you don’t have a hard drive, just burn your friend’s copy and purchase the game. You still have to pay for it, but you don’t have to store it.
- You never know, someone might find a way to enable the full versions of these games without a purchase. If that happens, watch Bit Torrent for the downloads to explode.
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Xbox Live, Xbox 360, Xbox, General |
no comments
Windows Vista features an easy shortcut to your first nine Quick Launch programs. Just hit the Windows key on your keyboard (the one with the Microsoft logo) plus a number. If you hit Windows+1, the first program in Quick Launch will start. Windows+2, the second. Got it? Simple enough.
Of course, if your Quick Launch icons reorder them every time you restart, this might not be as useful as intended. Just another bug for Microsoft to squash.
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Vista, Windows, General |
no comments
Microsoft announced at the Tokyo Game Show that a Fall software update will enable a new resolution in the Xbox 360: 1080p. Sony had long been claiming advantage over Microsoft, that it supported the highest HD resolution, but Microsoft was holding back this card until it announced pricing of the HD-DVD add-on.
If you have a TV that supports the resolution (or a VGA monitor), games programmed for 1080p will run at that resolution after the update. Games set at the 360’s regular 720p will be upscaled, a technology that worked quite well pulling original Xbox games from 480p to 720p. Not only that, but the 360 will now upscale DVDs to 1080p, eliminating the need for a seperate upscaling DVD player, and making that HD-DVD purchase a little less necessary.
Great job, Microsoft! I can’t wait for this update.
Coverage:
Joystiq:
Similar to the way the Xbox 360 upscales original Xbox games from 480p to 720p/1080i, you’ll be able to enjoy your existing Xbox 360 games at the new resolution. As if you needed more proof that Microsoft’s adoption of high definition HD-DVD is little more than a strategic move to limit Blu-ray’s potential sphere of influence, Microsoft’s 1080p software upgrade will also remove some of the value of their upcoming HD-DVD add-on by upscaling your existing DVD movies to HD resolutions, including 1080p.
So, Microsoft just announced that the Xbox 360 will play your existing DVDs back in high-definition — in addition to being able to play back legitimate HD-DVD content if you’re interested — and they’re gonna do it in 1080p. In the bullet point war, Sony better hope that extra Blu-ray disc space is worth it; they’ll have a chance to prove it at TGS this week.
Kotaku
IGN
PopCultureShock
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Xbox 360, Xbox, General |
no comments
There are plenty of good reasons to want an email to go out at a different hour than when you wrote it (the most obvious: to fake what hours you do work during). Lifehacker has the instructions for older versions of Outlook.
To do the same thing in Outlook 2007, after writing an email but before clicking Send, click the Options tab in the Ribbon, then click Delay Delivery in the More Options group on the right side. After that, the options are pre-selected for you, usually timing the delivery for the close of business today. Change the date and time to suit your needs, click Close, and enjoy your tomfoolery.
Now, how to I modify email headers to make an email look like I sent it earlier?
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Outlook, Applications, General |
no comments
CNet has a review of Microsoft Student 2007, the latest edition of Microsoft’s add-on suite for Office. The latest Student MSRPs at $69.99, thirty bucks less than Student 2006, and seems to include all the features of the previous version.
Student 2007 has:
- Encarta Premium 2007, the reliable and widely used encyclopedia, along with full access to its website for expanded information. Encarta brings with it a dictionary, thesaurus, worldwide maps and an interactive atlas. It also includes Encarta Kids, a version which sections off information safe for younger minds.
- Microsoft Math, which comes with a fully functioning 2D and 3D graphing calculator, an equation solver (for middle and high school pre-algebra, algebra 1 and 2, geometry, trigonometry and common arithmetic), free online homework help, triangle solver, an equation library (125 common equations and formulas; you can type in the equation and it will solve the variable, sometimes even graphing it), and a unit conversion tool. The homework help includes more than 100 textbooks and access to Hotmath (which is normally a $50 a year subscription), solving any specific problem from the most popular classroom textbooks.
- Foreign language help, with access to translation dictionaries for French, German, Spanish and Italion, and verb conjugation in French, German and Spanish.
- Learning Essentials, which are templates and tutorials for Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel and Powerpoint), helping students create quality reports, apply to college, simple tutorials to get started using the software, conduct research, use charts and graphs, and a literary analysis tool. Also has templates for book reports, creative projects, oral presentations, and project brainstorming tools.
Considering that Encarta is just $20 less and has long been a part of student research, Student 2007 is an easy buy for anyone considering getting the latest Encarta. You can compare Encarta and Student here. Student requires a WIndows XP system with a 600 MHz or better processor, 256 MB of RAM, 1.5 GB hard disk space, the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or better and a DVD drive. If you don’t have Microsoft Office, you won’t be able to use any features that rely on it.
In spite of the $70 suggested price, Buy.com has it for $38 after a twenty dollar mail in rebate. If you don’t like rebates, you can get it at Amazon for ten dollars off the MSRP, $60. Scroll down the page and you’ll see an offer for Student and Office Student and Teacher 2003 together for $170, fifty bucks off the retail price.
Some screenshots:
Home screen:
Microsoft Math graphing calculator:
September 20th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Office, Applications, General |
one comment
